Punjab EPA to seal marriage halls without suction hoods, after 500 restaurants shut

Punjab's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it will seal every marriage hall in the province that is still running its kitchen without a suction hood, and fine the owners as well. EPA Director General Abdullah Nayyer Sheikh issued the orders to field officers on Sunday, 27 September 2026, after the halls' deadline and an extended grace period ran out.

If you have a booking for a baraat or walima in the coming weeks, this is worth one phone call to your venue.

What the EPA ordered

• Who: all marriage halls operating in Punjab, from Lahore and Rawalpindi to Multan, Faisalabad and smaller district towns.
• What: a suction hood (a kitchen exhaust hood that captures cooking smoke and fumes) must be installed over the cooking area.
• Deadline: halls were originally told to comply by 31 January, then given an extended grace period. The EPA says that period is over and the halls had enough time.
• Penalty: closure and sealing of the hall, plus heavy fines. The EPA has not published a fine schedule with this order.
• Why: the department describes it as a zero-tolerance policy on smoke from commercial kitchens and other polluting discharges, the same drive it has run against restaurants.

The restaurant campaign gives a sense of scale: the EPA says more than 500 restaurants across Punjab have already been sealed over suction hood violations.

What it means if you have a wedding booked

Smog season in Punjab usually starts in late October, which is also peak wedding season, so enforcement is likely to be visible in the weeks ahead. A sealed hall cannot host your event until it is de-sealed, and that normally needs the owner to install the equipment and get the EPA to lift the seal.

1. Ask your hall directly whether its kitchen has a suction hood installed, and whether it has had an EPA inspection.
2. Get it in writing. A line in your booking receipt or a WhatsApp message from the manager is better than a verbal promise.
3. Check the refund terms for closure by a government order before you pay the balance.
4. Have a fallback. If you are booking now, ask about a second date or a sister venue under the same management.

If you are budgeting for the event, remember that fuel costs feed straight into catering and transport quotes: petrol is on our live petrol price page, and you can split any bill with the sales tax calculator where the hall charges tax on top.

For hall owners

The order leaves no room for a fresh extension. Owners who have not yet installed a hood should do it before an inspection team arrives, keep the installation invoice on site, and make sure the hood is actually running during events, since the EPA's case against restaurants has been about smoke emissions, not paperwork alone.